Is anyone familiar with surgeon's doing a bone marrow test at the time of surgery to remove cancer?

Specifically the surgery was a lumpectomy & bone marrow was tested in my hip. I asked the surgeon after & she gave a very medical term explanation that was hard to understand. My onocologist explained that the surgeon & her partner are the only ones that he is familiar with doing this & he thinks it's for a baseline of some sort. I need to ask the surgeon again but any other thoughts?

That's unusual. Doing a bone marrow biopsy to look for cancer cells is common in leukemias and lymphomas but I've never heard of it being done for breast cancer.

If they want to get the "type" for compatability, they only need to take a blood sample.

They usually do PET scans to look for bone metastisis.

BMTs used to be an option for breast cancer. It's still done today but, not as often because the research has failed to show a significant benefit.

This is a mystery for me. If you get a good answer to this, please post it.

They wanted to test your bone marrow to see if there was any cancer present. It can also be used as a baseline at a later date if it is ever needed. They probably do not suspect any cancer there and as you mention, it is just a baseline.

My son just had his second bone barrow biopsy yesterday in both hips. No problem, he was in and out and suffered no pain just a little discomfort. Again, they do not suspect to find anything, but he is being prepared for possible stem cell rescue and this was routine.

If you do not understand why you had this biopsy done, you should really ask the surgeon. I'm not sure why your oncologist didn't know. It was my son's oncologist who did the biopsy.

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